Nico Rosberg set the pace on the opening morning of the first in-season test of 2014 as Mercedes enjoyed more productive running.
With the test taking place in Bahrain following Sunday's race, Rosberg completed 70 laps and set a fastest time of 1:36.171 to lead Nico Hulkenberg
by 0.2s. Hulkenberg improved during a late run but was not completely happy with the steering in his Force India and only completed 25 laps in the morning session.
Kevin Magnussen was third quickest for McLaren but his morning came to a premature end, with Magnussen changing out of his overalls and debriefing with his engineers despite their being over 45 minutes until the lunch break.
Valtteri Bottas was over a second off the pace for Williams but ended the morning with the fourth fastest time. His lap of 1:37.305 left him just 0.07s clear of Fernando Alonso's Ferrari. Alonso caused the first red flag of the day when he stopped at Turn 2, pulling his
Ferrari across to the inside of the track, but was able to return to the track before lunch.
Daniel Ricciardo didn't emerge in the first hour and completed just one lap before 11am, but ended up with the sixth fastest time – 2.6s off the pace – having completed 29 laps as
Red Bull attempts to use the test to claw back some of the early Mercedes' advantage.
Sergey Sirotkin made his testing debut for Sauber and managed 33 laps with a best time 3.2s slower than Rosberg. He will remain in the car for the afternoon before handing over to Giedo van der Garde tomorrow, with Sauber the only team to not run at least one race driver.
Caterham is carrying out tyre testing for Pirelli on the opening day and Robin Frijns completed 63 laps in the morning as part of the programme, while most of the other teams were working on aerodynamic analysis.
It was another tough session for Lotus as Pastor Maldonado completed just 16 laps, though he was not helped by Max Chilton causing a red flag by stopping at Turn 4 just as Maldonado attempted his first proper run of the day.
Vía...Crash.net
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